Can captive-bred lions ever be released into the wild?

The latest trend in Southern Africa is farming large cats so that their cubs can be hand-raised by humans so that tourists can walk with them. While I have no fundamental objection to people getting their Joy Adamson fix from captive animals and paying for it, I do object to these walk-with-the lions outfits posing as conservation organizations.

A recent exposé in the Sunday Times found that one of these outfits that claim to raise lions to release back into the wild are actually raising them to sell to hunters who pay nearly $40,000 for a canned hunt. I personally find the idea of paying $40,000 to shoot a tame lion distasteful, but it falls so far outside the realms of conservation that I don't like to waste too much time fretting about what other people do for kicks.

The idea that lions and tigers can be captive bred and released into the wild is very popular, there are even some South China Tigers being ‘re-wilded' in South Africa as we speak. The fact that these outfits claim to release their animals into the wild for conservation benefit does beg the question “how realistic is it to re-introduce wild lions into the wild?” In fact a group of real conservationists has encountered these issues so frequently that they voiced their own concerns about the practice. Paula White, Craig Packer and Luke Hunter write in this letter arguing against lion farming:

… hand rearing of lion cubs will ensure that these animals are imprinted to humans, and that they will thereafter lack natural avoidance behaviors. Teaching hand reared cubs to hunt as sub-adults will not decrease their dependence on humans, nor will it alter their imprinted behaviors. Indeed, semi-tame lions may be as dangerous as wild lions. Recently (August, 2006) in South Africa, three 2½ year-old lions escaped from a game farm and killed two workers. The lions were obtained as cubs and raised by hand. In Tanzania, wild lions kill nearly one hundred people each year, the majority of them villagers. Alteration of lion behavior through captive breeding, hand rearing, and release of semi-tame animals or their habituated offspring is both dangerous and irresponsible when considering the safety and welfare of humans and their livestock in Zambia.

In Kenya, even Joy Adamson's famous lions proved to be too much to handle. Elsa – the star of the book ‘born free” raised her own cubs that had no fear of humans. They turned into serial cattle raiders. At best, re-introduced lions will be killed out of revenge in human-wildlife conflict episodes. At worst, a human becomes easy prey and someone dies. Neither of these scenarios are good for human-wildlife relations or for conservation for that matter. My take on the matter is to focus the conservation efforts and funds on real wild lions. The ‘walk with lions' schemes should be taken at face value - they are basically circus shows with a twist.

Brian Gratwicke

ZimConservation Synthesis Report No. 7